Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat on the grounds of the house of God, trembling about this matter and also because of the great rain.
Some of the Israelites, along with some of the priests, and the Levites, the singers, the porters, and the temple servants, went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
From the first day of the first month when the journey from Babylon began, until the first day of the fifth month when he arrived at Jerusalem, the good hand of his God was upon him.
For though we were slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage but has extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, granting us a reviving for the rebuilding of the house of our God, for the repairing of its ruins, and for giving us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
“Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until the Prince Messiah shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks. It shall be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of trouble.